Newborn Baby’s Foot Severely Burned After Nurse Allegedly Used Hot Towel During Checkup

A woman in Canada was horrified when her newborn suffered severe burns after a nurse placed a hot cloth on the child's foot while checking his blood sugar levels.

Tracy Louie, whose son was just three days old when he suffered the ordeal, demanded answers from the Victoria General Hospital regarding the negligence.

Louie said during a check-up on Dec. 13 she heard her son let out a loud scream. The nurse was reportedly checking her son's blood sugar levels then.

"To do that, she put a hot cloth on my son's foot … [and] left it there for a couple of minutes," Louie, 31, said, CBC News reported. "He screamed at the top of his lungs. He was really, really hurt."

Within hours, the baby had developed bright red blisters on his ankle and foot.

"He had bubbles of fluid develop on the bottom of his foot and on his toes and he ended up breaking the bubbles on his toes, which exposed ... a lot of his skin underneath," Louie said, the news outlet reported.

When Louie informed the hospital staff about what happened, they asked her if she “scraped him on something."

“I was outraged that they would assume it wasn’t the nurse, but me,” the mother of five told Victoria News.

Louie said she is "maddened" by the hospital's followup and wanted answers as to how the incident took place.

"I'm appalled by the whole thing. ... I just need [my baby] to get justice for this," she said. "She should know how to do her job."

Island Health, the publicly funded health care provider, confirmed they were aware of the incident.

“We acknowledge how distressing this situation is for the family and we are doing everything we can to determine what happened and how we can prevent this from happening again,” a spokesperson said in a statement from the health authority to CBC News.

The health officials said the incident was being investigated.

According to Victoria News, the child was released from the hospital on the 11th day since being born. Louie is expected to return next week for a check up of the baby's burns.